In conversation with ‘War Machine’ producer Dede Gardner

On India, digital films and working with Brad Pitt

Dorcas Wright Gardner, better known as Dede Gardner, founded Plan B Entertainment with Hollywood actor Brad Pitt. As president of Plan B and producer of films such as The Tree of Life, Selma and The Big Short, she’s considered one of the most influential women in Hollywood today, not least as the only woman producer to have bagged two best picture Oscars: for 12 Years a Slave and Moonlight. The 49-year-old Columbia University graduate stopped by Mumbai earlier this week to promote their latest feature film, War Machine, a war-time satire starring Pitt, which streams on Netflix. This was not Gardner’s first visit to India, however, having previously been here to shoot Eat Pray Love and A Mighty Heart. Excerpts from an interview on her life in the movies:

Looking back at your career, what do you see?
I feel really lucky. I put my head down and worked hard. I got involved in the industry because I love stories and narratives. I was an English major. I am pretty much a nerd and I love to read. And this job requires you to read a lot. It’s evolved into something more than I could have ever made up in my head. I met Brad around 14 years ago, I think, and we set out to start this company and, in many ways, what he said then is part of the reason why it has held together so beautifully. Brad once said, “have faith in the shelf life of a film”, rather than just the opening weekend, its box office or the awards. He said these movies take a long time; let’s not regret anything. So make sure that when we choose a story it’s a story that will die if we don’t tell it. It’s an incredible privilege for someone to say don’t worry about that stuff.

As a highly accredited, two-time Oscar winning producer, do you feel you are in a unique position?
No, I don’t. By no means am I glib or unmoved by the privilege and the paths that many people have shown me, but I think about this only when someone points it out and then I am like oh, I guess that is a statistic.

The kind of films you have backed seem to be counter-intuitive.
What we do believe in our company is that history is deeply critical and looking back is a reflex that everyone should employ. Great swathes of our history have not been told, have not been given any agency or purchase. That matters dearly to us. They are all there; anyone can find these narratives. Why tell a story that people have seen 900 times. That’s not interesting artistically. I think it comes from a genuine chord in our hearts, which we all share at Plan B, which is to do with narrative.

Has it been challenging, balancing working with family?
It is challenging but also a tremendous gift. I have taken my children around the world—they have both been to India too—and I genuinely believe they are different people for that. I am someone who loves to travel and so its more plane rides, that’s for sure. But it’s a real gift that they have been able to be in so many parts of the world, watching stories get told and understanding that there are people for whom narrative is important.

How do you consume entertainment—in a movie theatre or on a personal device? And where do you stand on the recent debate about digital movies not being valid competition for films aiming for a theatrical release?
Home viewing and theatre are very different experiences. I treasure the dark hours in a theatre. But I don’t think that if a film does not reach the theatre it is, therefore, not a film. I think that notion is adjudicating the wrong thing. I think there’s room for all of it. I don’t want to live in the day where are no theatres, but I also think that the things that reach there are not the only thing to be considered film. That’s limiting.